by Anne Nesbet
Gusta knew that showing fear (which Molly was presently in the midst of doing) was the wrong way to manage dogs. Her mother had told her that several times, when they had run into crabby dogs in New York parks or on the outskirts of the New England mill towns where they had lived before New York. So Gusta swallowed her own fear and walked forward, trying to look confident and large.
“GO HOME,” she said in her deepest, most confident voice, to that dog. “YOU. GO. HOME!”
And maybe it was her confident voice, and maybe it was because there were suddenly two girls to contend with, instead of one frightened one, and maybe it was just that the black dog had never seen anything as odd-looking as a French horn case before, but it blinked, backed off, and then turned tail and ran. Thank goodness!
“Oh, gosh,” said Molly, pushing herself up from the ground to a sitting position. “Oh, gosh, Gusta, how did you even do that? Oh, I just hate dogs!”
“Are you okay?” said Gusta. “Here, let me help you up. Can you stand?”
“I’m all right,” said Molly. Her knees were a mess, and her palms were scraped up, too. “But oh, what am I going to tell Daddy about my bicycle?”
The girls looked at the bicycle. One of the wheels was bent out of shape, and its gorgeous, shiny green fenders were scratched up. It was no longer the proud vehicle that had swooped past Gusta a minute before.
“I bet someone can repair it,” said Gusta, but she couldn’t manage the same degree of confidence she had wielded in the face of that dog. “It’s really just that one wheel that’s badly banged up.”
“I was so stupid,” said Molly. “I let that dog spook me. Daddy gets so mad when I’m scared of dogs. Or cows.”
She limped over to the corpse of the bicycle.
“Here, I’ll get that,” said Gusta. Who would ever have thought in a thousand years that she would find herself feeling sorry for Molly Gowen? “Is your ankle twisted, too?”
“Yep, guess it is,” said Molly. She winced. “Gosh. Just because of that dog.”
And she shook her curly hair as she watched Gusta pick up the bicycle, battered and twisted.
“Look,” said Gusta. “Where do you live? I can help you get home.”
“We’re way over the other side of the main road,” said Molly, trying a few unsteady steps. “It’s pretty far.”
“All right, don’t worry. We can get you to Gramma Hoopes’s house, and then maybe one of the uncles can give you a lift home in the truck.”
Because now that Gusta had looked around and taken stock, she knew where they were. They weren’t far from the place where Chestnut Street ran into Elm Street. Josie had always said that Chestnut Street had a bad dog.
She managed to fit the horn case into the bicycle’s basket and figured she could wheel the thing along, mostly on its good wheel. Molly would have to hobble, but at least she wouldn’t have to hobble too terribly far.
“So you like milk, but you’re afraid of cows?” said Gusta. She was really just trying to make conversation, because otherwise helping someone with a twisted ankle limp even only half a mile can feel endless.
Molly looked over suspiciously.
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” she said. “They’d laugh and tease, just like Daddy and Byron always laugh. You can’t be part of the family that runs the Sharp’s Ridge Dairy and be afraid of cows. It’s an awful shame. It’s practically un-American.”
Gusta figured Byron must be her brother.
“Anyway, dogs are much worse than cows,” Molly said. “They come jumping out at you and have sharp teeth. It’s just that cows are so big.”
“I know it,” said Gusta. “I’m not really fond of cows, either, but then I didn’t grow up on a farm.”
“Miss Hatch says you came here from New York City, but I’ve been wondering about that. My Daddy says with that name you have, you might have come from Germany,” said Molly. “He says we have to be really cautious these days, with all the countries over in Europe fighting each other and aliens everywhere.”
The previous version of Gusta would probably not have said anything much in response to this: she would have kept her eyes down and limited her voice to a mumble and felt bad later about all that hiding. But Gusta was tired of always covering up what she thought about things. It didn’t seem to be what a brave and truthful person should do in the light of trouble.
“Honestly, Molly Gowen,” she said, stopping short. “I don’t know why you always have to be talking about aliens that way. Shouldn’t what a person does matter more than where he came from? And just look at what I’m doing now: I’m wheeling your poor broken bike to my own grandmother’s house, down Elm Street. Right? And I think you know that my Gramma Hoopes is not any kind of alien from anywhere.”
“Of course she’s not,” said Molly, who, like the bad dog, found it very hard to leave things once she had gotten hold of them. “Not your grandmother. But what about your father nobody knows, with that funny name? Rumor is he’s German. Why wouldn’t I worry about that? Have you heard what the Germans have been doing? They’re invading all sorts of countries over there! Only makes sense that we have to be careful. That’s all. I’m just trying to be careful. We don’t want Nazis in Springdale. It’s scary thinking people are hiding here in town, and we don’t even know who they really are. I’d think anyone would understand that.”
Some conversations are like two people picking their way toward each other across a swamp. Gusta took a cautious step, and then another.
“Well, now, look,” she said, as she and Molly wobbled and hobbled down Elm Street. “Even if my papa came here from Germany, haven’t you ever thought for one minute that some people might leave Germany because they don’t agree with what the Nazis are doing? Haven’t you thought for a moment how dangerous it would be, to be someone who disagrees with what the Nazis think? If someone like my father put his foot into Germany, you know what they would do? They would lock him up! And then they would probably kill him.”
Gusta had to stop and gulp there. She couldn’t help thinking about how her father had been running toward Canada because, if the Americans captured him and put him on trial like they were threatening to do, they might actually have decided to deport him to Germany, where all the terrible things she had just said aloud might actually happen. And she found it all overwhelming, when stated aloud that way.
She wished she knew: Had he been captured, back on that awful day in Portland? Was he safely in Canada? Was he off fighting the European war? Where, oh where was he?
“You don’t have to get so upset,” said Molly.
“I’m only upset because it’s upsetting,” said Gusta. “I’m just saying, that it’s not where you come from that determines who you are. Right? Think about it. You’re from a dairy farm, but you don’t like cows.”
There was a significant pause.
“Well, but,” said Molly, “we still have to be careful. And at least our cows are American cows.”
And Gusta couldn’t quite tell whether or not Molly was kidding. They were right in front of the Hoopes Home now, at least. Thank goodness.
“Gusta,” said Molly, grabbing her arm. “Promise you won’t tell anyone how this accident happened. Promise you won’t tell. I don’t want them thinking I’m afraid of dogs.”
At least this secret was pretty small.
Gusta looked into Molly’s eyes, and for a miraculous moment she and Molly Gowen, despite everything, understood each other.
“Or cows,” they both said. Secret shared.
One morning Bess’s usually cheerful face had all the cheerfulness simply ironed right out of it. Josie didn’t even notice, she was so full of chatter about the spring concert — which was already tomorrow! — but Gusta kept stealing glances at her quiet cousin, and there was really no doubt: something was wrong.
Bess waited until Josie had gone on to the high school, and then she tugged Gusta to one side.
She said, “That man from the union came by again
yesterday. You know, they got voted in at that election we had to run away from.”
“Oh?” said Gusta. “That’s good, right? What did he say about helping your papa?”
“That’s the problem,” said Bess. “He said he didn’t think they could do anything for him. My papa’s not working at the mills now, right? So he’s not covered by anything. That Mr. Smith said the union’ll be helping future Charlie Goodmans, but that’s no good for us now, is it? And now my papa’s sad and sick again. He didn’t talk this morning. Didn’t say a single word.”
“Oh, no,” said Gusta. Her heart sank and sank and sank, right to the bottom of the deep blue sea.
Because in the stories her heart had been telling her, the union wasn’t just supposed to come in and save Uncle Charlie’s hand — it was supposed to save Gusta’s horn from having to save Uncle Charlie’s hand.
“You think he’s getting bad again? As bad as he was before?”
“Maybe worse,” said Bess, and then she stopped in her tracks and grabbed Gusta by the wrist. “What can we do, Gusta?”
Oh, that went right through Gusta’s drowning heart. It was a call: she had to help.
Her well of good ideas was pretty close to dry, however. And at the bottom of that well was the one thing she knew was worth enough, in all its brassy wonder, to pay for Uncle Charlie’s operation. To fix his wounded hand. If she had to, she would reach all the way down into that well and do the hard but necessary thing. If she had to, yes, her voice would have to go.
That thought, however, made her heart tear into messy little pieces.
So all that day Gusta tried to think of something — something that wasn’t the obvious thing, which was going to Miss Kendall and offering to sell her the French horn after all.
While Miss Hatch was explaining the intricacies of adding fractions again, Gusta’s mind went around and around the loop: Uncle Charlie — Miss Kendall — the horn. Uncle Charlie — Miss Kendall — the horn. Charlie — Kendall — horn. Charlie — Kendall —
And then she found herself having a wild and desperate idea: What if she tried to go right to the source of the trouble?
Miss Kendall was such a good egg; could her brother be so absolutely, putridly rotten? If he was faced with the Right Thing to Do, would he really refuse to do it?
And if Mr. Kendall could be persuaded to do the right thing, then Uncle Charlie’s hand and the horn might both be all right.
Gusta dragged Bess to the side at the end of the day and waved the boys on home without them.
“Listen,” she said. “You don’t have to come with me, but here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going down to the mills this afternoon. I’m going to have a word with that Mr. Kendall fellow himself.”
“No!” said Bess. Her eyes were wide. “What will Gramma Hoopes say? What would my papa say? What will Josie say?”
“None of them will say anything good, Bess,” said Gusta. “That’s for sure. But I’ve decided. It’s got to be done. It’s not right, what Mr. Kendall did to your father. Even if the union can’t fix this, Mr. Kendall should do the right thing. He should pay the medical people and get your papa’s hand fixed. And I’m going to go and tell him so.”
Bess was silent for a moment, and then she nodded.
“All right, then, Gusta,” said Bess. “I’ll come, too. If you’re there, I think I can be mostly brave. I can try.”
Some part of Gusta’s drowned and damaged heart mended a little at that moment.
It makes a difference, having a friend willing to come into danger with you, just so you don’t have to be all alone.
Her father used to use a big word for it: solidarity. He used it to explain why he had to do what he had to do, on behalf of all his brothers, who were not literally his brothers, but were workingmen who just wanted what people everywhere want: decent work for a decent wage. And fairness. And not being thrown out into the street with doctors’ bills to pay when the factory’s own machine chewed up their hands.
Gusta looked at Bess and decided she was adding another layer to her father’s slogan: Solidarity forever . . . and cousins!
They turned away from the school and walked down to the Kendall Mills buildings, both girls several notches quieter than usual. They were both a little in awe of what they were actually about to try to do.
“They may not let us in, you know,” said Gusta, to keep Bess’s expectations realistic. “They’ll do pretty much anything, the owners, to keep union types out of their offices.”
But of course Bess and Gusta didn’t look like “union types.” They looked like a fourth-grader and a fifth-grader from the local elementary school. Mr. Kendall’s secretary didn’t even grill them about what they wanted to see the mill’s owner for. She just looked up at them from her desk and smiled over the top of her reading glasses.
“Sure, I guess you girls can see Mr. Kendall! He’s got a meeting in twenty minutes, but why don’t you two hop on in.”
And into her intercom she said something about them to Mr. Kendall — Gusta distinctly heard the word sweet. She took Bess’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.
Solidarity forever!
Mr. Kendall turned out to be a medium-size man without much hair left — not really Gusta’s image of what a mill owner should look like. He looked sort of like an ordinary person, with bushy red-gray eyebrows, someone who maybe had even been decent-looking long ago, but who had gotten used to sitting behind a big desk and telling people what to do, and as a result, had lost most of his hair and acquired a sort of slumpy look around the shoulders and the midsection.
“Well, now, what can I do for you young ladies?” said Mr. Kendall with a smile. “You two collecting for the Women’s Patriotic Society, maybe?”
“Oh, Mr. Kendall,” said Bess, completely softening in the face of that smile. “I’m sure you must not have known about the laws — tell him, Gusta!”
“What?” said Mr. Kendall.
To be fair, Gusta would also have said exactly the same thing, had she been the one behind the desk.
It was time, definitely time, to stand up straight and look like you knew what you were about!
“Mr. Kendall, this is Bess Goodman,” said Gusta. She took a deep breath and said it all fast, before her courage could shut itself up and go away. “Her father is Mr. Charles Goodman. He worked in your mill for . . . a long time, and then one of the mill’s machines mangled his hand, which was not his fault. Because the foreman told him to fix something without — without shutting down the line. And it has, um, come to our attention that even though it was not his fault in the slightest, the mill just fired him and refused to pay his medical bills, which we are pretty sure is against the law. So we would like to ask you to make things right.”
“So they don’t take away our house,” said Bess in the bravest of whispers. “Or Papa’s radio.”
Never had Gusta seen an expression quite like the one now spreading in quick red splotches over Mr. Kendall’s face. It was like watching angry red countries appear one by one on a secret map of the world. He did not even glance to the side, at the bravely whispering Bess. His narrowed eyes were staring like cannons right at Gusta.
“Who are you?” he said.
Gusta hesitated for a moment.
“I’m Augusta,” she said.
“Augusta Neubronner,” added Bess. “My cousin. She’s a Hoopes.”
And that was when something extraordinary happened to the map of blotches covering Mr. Kendall’s face: he went completely pale, all at once, fell back heavily into his chair, and then flushed red all over again.
“So that’s what this is all about!” he said, and every word was ice and acid. Gusta had been in rooms with plenty of angry grown-ups, but this face here was the angriest she had ever seen. “A Hoopes girl, sent my way! A Hoopes girl, sent to threaten and beg!”
Bess’s hand was trembling, literally trembling from the shock, under Gusta’s. Gusta stood even straighter, because she couldn
’t think what else to do. And she squeezed Bess’s trembling fingers very firmly, as if she knew what was going on here with this angry man, which she did not.
“Talking about what the law says isn’t threatening anyone, Mr. Kendall,” said Gusta, trying to keep her voice kind of conversational and calm. “It’s just talking about the law. Mr. Goodman just needs the mill to pay his doctor’s bill, like the mill’s supposed to do, because of the worker’s compensa —”
“The gall of you!” said Mr. Kendall, interrupting. “The stinking gall! Just like a Hoopes! Sauntering in here, thinking you can shake me down. Breaking all the bargains we ever had. Well!”
He was rising right out of his chair as he spoke — he was looming over them now, like a tidal wave of rage.
Gusta did not understand. What was he even saying?
What bargains had Gusta ever had with this red-faced Mr. Kendall? Why was he talking this way? She could feel herself beginning to lose her balance. And he was continuing his wild, looming rant.
“Well, you go tell that Mrs. Hoopes of yours, that greedy old crow — go tell that hussy Marion, too, what do I care now?— tell them they’ve done it. The deal is off. They’ll not get a penny more out of me, not as long as I live and not after. I’m done with it. Done with maintaining that girl they say is mine but who could be anybody’s, far as I know. Go tell Marion that child of hers is old enough to be earning her own way. What is she now, fourteen? That’s an age past needing coddling.”
“Fourteen?” echoed Gusta. What was he saying? Why was he saying any of this?
“That’s it,” he said. “I’ve had enough. You take my message back to those poisonous Hoopes women. Go, now. Scram!”
Gusta and Bess had already taken a couple of steps back. Being yelled at has that effect on feet — makes them want to get away. To get far away, as fast as they can.